Organizations such as on-line retailers, Internet service providers, search providers, financial institutions, universities, and other computing-intensive organizations often conduct computer operations from large scale computing facilities. Such computing facilities house and accommodate a large amount of server, network, and computer equipment to process, store, and exchange data as needed to carry out an organization's operations. Typically, a computer room of a computing facility includes many server racks. Each server rack, in turn, includes many servers and associated computer equipment.
Computer systems typically include a number of components that generate waste heat. Such components include printed circuit boards, mass storage devices, power supplies, and processors. For example, some computers with multiple processors may generate 250 watts of waste heat. Some known computer systems include a plurality of such larger, multiple-processor computers that are configured into rack-mounted components, and then are subsequently positioned within a rack computing system. Some known rack computing systems include 40 such rack-mounted components and such rack computing systems will therefore generate as much as 10 kilowatts of waste heat. Moreover, some known data centers include a plurality of such rack computing systems.
Some known data centers include methods and apparatus that facilitate waste heat removal from rack systems. Some waste heat removal systems remove waste heat from data centers by transferring waste heat to flows of air (“exhaust air”), which are then used to transport the waste heat to an environment external to the data center. Such an environment can include an ambient environment. Such methods and apparatus can include directing cooling air into an intake side of a rack in which computer systems are installed, through an interior of the rack so that the cooling air removes heat from heat-producing components of the computer systems, and is discharged from an opposite “exhaust end” of the rack as exhaust air to remove the heat from the rack.
In some cases, exhaust air can pass back from the exhaust end of the rack to the intake end of the rack. Such “recirculation” of exhaust air may have a reduced capacity to remove heat relative to non-recirculated cooling air, and recirculated exhaust air on an intake end of a rack may be recirculated through the rack. Such recirculation of exhaust air to the intake end can establish a feedback loop which can lead to reduced heat removal from one or more computer systems in the rack, waste heat buildup in the rack, overheating, damage to computing components, etc. Such results can result in detrimental effects on computing capabilities of a data center.
In some cases, environmental conditions in a data center can deviate from normal operating conditions. Such deviations can be caused by various factors. For example, broken air moving devices, air intake debris obstructions, etc. in servers can restrict the flow of cooling air to remove heat from the server, thus posing a risk of thermal damage to a server. In addition, where cooling air is provided to a computer room via one or more air handling systems, a negative pressure differential across the air handling systems, including a negative pressure differential between an air cooling system and an underfloor plenum supplying the cooling air to the computer room, can result in certain computer systems being starved of cooling air, including computer systems mounted on top of racks, etc. Furthermore, where the temperature and relative humidity in a computer room, which can be represented by a heat index value, exceeds a threshold, various components in a server can incur damage. In another example, temperatures in parts of a computer room may drop below normal where excess cooling is being provided, which may represent a waste of cooling resources.
In some cases, a data center can include environmental sensors which can monitor one or more environmental characteristics, including one or more of temperature, air pressure, relative humidity, some combination thereof, or the like. Environmental sensors can be positioned in various regions in a data center and can provide sensor data indicating environmental data for various servers located in the regions. A given region may include various servers, which may be mounted in one or more various racks. An environmental sensor in a region of servers may generate environmental data for the region that is associated with each of the servers in the region.
As a result, where a common set of environmental data may be associated with multiple servers in a data center region, the generated sensor data may not account for individual variations in environmental conditions at an individual rack level, server level, etc. within the region. For example, where a region of a data center includes a cold aisle, through which cooling air is circulated and along which two rows of racks extend along opposite sides of the aisle, a temperature sensor mounted in the aisle may generate aisle temperature data for each of the servers mounted in the rows of racks and may not account for individual temperatures of portions of the aisle proximate to each of the individual servers. Mounting additional environmental sensors in the data center region, for example mounting individual environmental sensors proximate to each of the servers in each of the racks in a given region, may be time consuming and costly.
The various embodiments described herein are susceptible to various modifications and alternative forms. Specific embodiments are shown by way of example in the drawings and will herein be described in detail. It should be understood, however, that the drawings and detailed description thereto are not intended to limit the disclosure to the particular form disclosed, but on the contrary, the intention is to cover all modifications, equivalents and alternatives falling within the spirit and scope of the appended claims. The headings used herein are for organizational purposes only and are not meant to be used to limit the scope of the description or the claims. As used throughout this application, the word “may” is used in a permissive sense (i.e., meaning having the potential to), rather than the mandatory sense (i.e., meaning must). Similarly, the words “include,” “including,” and “includes” mean including, but not limited to.